Ecuador Galapagos BlogSpot Tuesday March 29, 2011
Blue cooked a nice breakfast this am then we all trekked down to the tour office to take a day tour of Floreana Island. Our guide was also named Eduardo, though older and not as good of English as the young guide yesterday. This island was the first island to be inhabited by humans, it has many introduced species, but tortoises are extinct as a result. A small settlement established on Floreana quickly became a penal colony, and stories of subsequent tyranny, slavery and murder on the island abounded. There are interesting books written about the history, some worth pursuing!
It is a two hour boat ride to the island. A few folks got sick, none of our group!! We landed on the island, walked a short distance then loaded onto a taxi bus. We went to a tortoise sanctuary and got to walk through the “woods” to look for tortoises. We found some “in the wild” and many at the feeding stations. The tortoises are fed three times per week, they are on their own the rest of the time. Then we went for a hike through some really neat natural rock formation (think Easter Island on a very small scale) and to some shallow caves where two families lived (at different times) while they built their homes. There was also a stone carving of a head… not sure of the history of that!
While on this trip we met Midene, from Texas. She and her husband, Michael, are cruising on their 45’ sailboat around much of the world. She was very fun to chat with. When they finish cruising, they are going back to their little ranchette in TX and hope to have border collies to do agility and other activities. We had plenty to talk about!! We had a nice lunch at the local restaurant. A starter of popcorn (!), then tuna (I thought it was a pork chop, it was excellent!!), cabbage salad and rice, followed by sliced bananas with a little raspberry sauce on it for dessert. Washed it all down with some nice juice.
Then we took a moderate walk (in the heat and humidity) to a beach to go snorkeling. We trekked by lots of lava beds, they are so neat to look at! They are frozen in time, but you can sure “see” the flow. I had to stop to take photos of all the great crabs on the lava at the surf line. What a bunch of neat little creatures. The beach was beautiful but had more wave action than I expected. Also, we had to swim over some rocks to get to the best snorkeling area. But you float so well in this salt water, I floated right over the rocks (but was watching very carefully!) and got out to a pretty area. There is not any pretty coral and the fish are not as colorful as in other tropical areas I have seen. BUT a sea turtle swam right to me, then under me and on by!! I was so excited, and I even got three good photos!! There was also a sea lion in the water with us. That made for a wonderful snorkeling experience!
We hiked back to the pier and loaded back on the boat to head home to Santa Cruz Island. On the way we detoured by other areas of the island to see blue footed boobies (and their feet are really blue) and penguins. We only saw one lonely little penguin, but several boobies. Booby refers to the Spanish word bobo, meaning clown. The mating dance of these birds is a dance called the “booby two step” and is quite comical to watch. We did not get to see this during the tour, but several of the restaurants have the BBC DVD running and we got to see it on that! We finally headed back to Santa Cruz amid a beautiful sunset. Most of the visitors slept on the way back. I was too busy watching for, and seeing, dolphins and whales!
When we got back to the island, our tired group went back to the house to clean up, then Ginny, Blue and I met up with Midene and Michael for dinner. We had a great visit and worked on meeting up in San Cristobol (where their boat is moored) in two days time. I am sure looking forward to that visit!
Back to the house for a much needed rest! I think I want to try to do another day tour tomorrow…
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